Options
by Winchester and Winchester
Summary: What if there was another patient in the Hospital room where Dean was in after his heart attack? What would she think of these two guys? Episode: Faith


It was the kind of Hospital room that was set up for several patient, with thick curtains surrounding each bed for at least a little privacy. The patient, a 19 year old girl who didn't have any siblings, didn't have her TV on because she'd been there for weeks and there was nothing left to watch. She had terminal cancer and was just waiting to die. She'd come to terms with that a few days back. Her parents had died when she was younger and she was all alone now. No friends came to visit her anymore, so she would listen to other patient's conversations when their friends or family came to visit. It was a sort of living-vicariously-through-them situation.

Though she couldn't see the bed across from her's due to the curtain that the nurse had pulled across after her last visit, she knew it was a guy. His low voice was easily heard in the quiet room and she found herself enjoying his quiet, sarcastic responses to the TV shows and commercials he encountered as he flipped through. At one point he mumbled something about motel TV being better._Just wait til you try the food_, she thought absently.

She noted the sound of slow footsteps entering the room and she knew the visitor wasn't for her. It wasn't time for the nurse's regular visit and she hadn't had a visitor in a long time.

"Have you ever actually watched daytime TV?" the familiar voice asks his visitor. "It's terrible."

The visitor sighed heavily."I talked to your Doctor," a male voice replied, his tone quiet. The news wasn't good, she immediately knew.

"That fabric softener teddy bear. Oh, I'm gonna hunt that little bitch down."

She couldn't help but smile a little. The guy was basically ignoring his visitor and was obviously more interested in what was on TV than his current condition. She understood that a little too much. Denial was the easiest way to go.

"Dean." The visitor was asking for the guy's attention and finally she heard the TV click off. The guy, Dean, replied something about his visitor having to leave town without him and the girl found herself imagining their life. They were close, she could tell just by the way the visitor immediately denied leaving without Dean, and whatever diagnosis Dean had seemed to be deeply hurting the visitor.

"Hey, you better take care of that car. Or I swear I'll haunt your ass." Dean's voice was hoarse and he sounded sick. But he didn't stop angling for a joke. He seemed more intent on making his visitor smile than he did about actually taking the situation seriously. His visitor wasn't interested in smiling, though. He replied that he didn't think that was very funny, to which Dean tried to insist that it was.

Then, silence. The girl closed her eyes, visualizing their situation. Are they close friends? Brothers? Boyfriends? You rule out the last one because they seem too close for that, as much sense as that doesn't make. Though she never had a brother and couldn't perfectly understand that relationship, she settled on them being siblings.

The visitor was shuffling his feet, audibly shifting his weight. Finally Dean started talking, facing the situation. He called the other guy Sammy and her assumption of them being brothers seemed oddly cemented by that name. It was affectionate but he spoke protectively, even though he was weak. Definitely brothers. And Dean was obviously the big brother.

Sammy tried to deny the death sentence that Dean seemed to be accepting, saying that there were some kind of options, but Dean replied with, "What options? You got burial or cremation." He continued on, adding that as much as it sucked, he was going to die and Sammy couldn't do anything about it.

Quiet followed before Sammy stated, "Watch me." The girl could easily imagine the way that Sammy said it; chin jutting out defiantly, straightening to his full height, visibly ignoring Dean's claims.

Dean said nothing in response and soon, she heard Sammy walk out of the room, closing the door behind him. The girl pulled in a quiet breath, unsure if Dean knew she was there. He'd been wheeled in a few minutes after her nurse left so he probably assumed that he was alone.

"Dammit," he whispered under his breath. She listened as he shifted in the uncomfortable bed for a few seconds before settling again.

He was completely silent for about an hour, no TV, no sounds at all, until suddenly she heard him push the blankets back. He was out of the room in the matter of a minute and the patient couldn't help but chuckle when she heard a nurse outside try to get him back to the room and Dean's vehement denial. He never did come back.

When her nurse came in, the girl asked about her absent roommate. "Oh he was a stubborn one," she said as she checked the patient's charts and levels. "Got himself checked out. Said somethin' about dying with his brother being better than dying in here."

"So he was dying?" she asked.

The nurse nodded. "Yeah. He'd had a heart attack and there wasn't any hope for him to get better."

The patient was surprised. "Heart attack? He sounded pretty young."

"He's not even 30."

"Wow."

The red haired nurse set the chart back in its place and left without any more conversation. The girl spent the rest of the day thinking about Dean and Sammy and what options Sammy was searching for. Would he find some answers? Would Dean be okay? The questions occupied her mind for hours and as she slipped into a dark, lasting sleep, her final thought was that she sincerely hoped that the two brothers who cared so deeply about each other would be alright. Any family members who were that close didn't deserve to be separated - especially not by death.

The 19 year old girl died alone that night, without the company of any family or friends.


End file.
